


Not All Men

by DontKillAnybody



Category: Big Hero 6
Genre: Ace!Tadashi, Also Tadashi is alive, Asexuality, Gen, I can't even write people holding hands, Talkin' bout nude mags, There is also a passing mention of Wasabi for the No-Ginger inclined, There's a single mention of Gogo in the whole thing if you're really desperate, This has nothing to do with feminism, nothing explicit though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:32:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2648792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DontKillAnybody/pseuds/DontKillAnybody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred finally convinces Hiro to read some of his comics but his filing system isn't always the best and now Hiro's got questions that are perfectly normal for a growing boy.<br/>Just not directed at Fred.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Here It Is

**Author's Note:**

> The fire didn't happen because, let's face it, it killed every single one of us. So Tadashi's alive, Hiro went to SFIT , they're all bros. It's good to be Word God.

"Alright you're probably gonna want to start small..." Fred squinted carefully at the shelves in his room and ran a finger over the rows of comic books. "A lot of what I've got is in series so-- Oh wait!" He jumped up excitedly, startling Hiro from the other side of the room, and began to scan the rows even more fervently.

 

"Uh...you want some help?" Hiro stuck his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and glanced at the shelf next to him. All these comics and it could be days before Fred found whichever edition he was looking for.

 

"That," Fred moved to the next row, "Would be awesome. Start looking for anything that says 'Deadpool', but with, like a dinosaur on the cover. It looks  _super_ cool."

 

He smiled and shrugged. Fred was always trying to involve the rest of them in his obsession, dropping not-so-subtle hints about upcoming conventions and even trying to rope Gogo into going comic-shopping with him after school one Tuesday afternoon. She'd popped her gum and suggested he'd have better luck with the Hamadas. Since the he'd moved onto Hiro, badgering him with smiles and suggestions to check out _just one_  from his collection and see what he thought.

 

So after being his target for three weeks, with his homework done and Tadashi staying late at the Institute for his latest project, Hiro had complied.

 

And now here he was, scouring unknown stacks of paper for...a dinosaur? Hiro rolled his eyes and bent down to look through the drawer under the bookshelf. The comics were still organized neatly inside, separated into some kind of system (not that he could tell if it was color or number or name), but so that the spines were facing up and not their covers. Hiro dug his arm in and began and began pulling them up, one by one, and only half listening to Fred ramble on about some assassin killing zombie presidents and how cool it would be if Theodore Roosevelt got up from his grave and started riding through the Midwest. It was a blur of colors mostly, only a vague lizard shape would have made any impression as he flipped through images of spandex clad heroes in blue and red and green and nude and---

 

Hiro froze, eyes wide. His mouth was a soft grimace and he patiently examined the strip of wall between the shelf and the drawer, a very fascinating bit of red paint all of a sudden, while his head ran through the past and future scenarios of how this could play out.

 

Maybe Fred just had a random comic with a naked girl on the front.

Maybe it was here by accident.

Maybe he could ignore it.

 

He glanced down at the thing, its cover once again hidden in the folds of comic hell but still very much in his grasp.

 

"Hey Hiro I think I--"

 

Hiro's left hand slammed the drawer shut on his wrist.

 

"Ow!" He released his death grip on the magazine and cradled his injured hand.

 

Fred knelt down next to him and sucked a mouthful of air through his teeth. "Ouch, man. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to scare ya."

 

Hiro could feel how red his face was, a cherry cocktail of pain, embarrassment, and guilt. "I'm fine, Fred. Really."

 

"We should get some ice on that. Just let me--" Fred moved to open the drawer again.

 

"Wait!" But he was too late. 

 

In his mad rush to get the drawer closed, the magazine had been pulled free of the stack and the first few pages were drawn out and crumpled. The whole front was just a mishmash of lingerie and what he hoped were elbows.

 

"Woah, what happened?" Fred picked up the periodical and smoothed it out on the floor, before he recognized what it was and quickly flipping it over so an advertisement was face up instead of....well, the other thing.

 

Hiro shot for damage control. "I didn't look at it," he insisted.

 

Fred's eyes were still fairly wide. "Yeah, but you saw it, right?"

 

He glanced down at it before nodding.

 

"Well," Fred sighed and rolled up the magazine, careful to keep the cover pointed away from Hiro, "It's probably not news to you anyway. I mean, that wasn't supposed to be over there in the first place. Sorry, Hiro." He stood up and stretched. "Let's get you that ice now. I found the comic I was looking for too," He waggled the floppy piece of print at him, where there was indeed a dinosaur on the cover as well as a guy in red covered in redder blood.

 

Fred recovered quickly from the incident. He tossed the magazine in the trash and began recounting the finer details of Deadpool killing zombie Abraham Lincoln almost as soon as they stepped foot in the kitchen. As he passed Hiro ice to make a quick compress though, he failed to notice his silence. It wasn't exactly Hiro's first experience with people-sans-clothes but everything up to that point had mostly been an accident, like walking in on Aunt Cass or Tadashi stepping out of the shower or browsing for something innocuous on the computer and having an image or two slip past his brother's firewalls.

 

And then there was an actual physical catalogue full of the pictures for an end that Hiro was both put off by and interested in.

 

"So Fred," Hiro tried to keep his face neutral, although his eyebrows insisted on hovering up near his forehead, "What's with the magazine?"

 

"Well Hiro, say it's a Friday night and you're at home and..." Fred paused in his explanation and looked bashful. "Actually, you should ask Tadashi about it. I don't think he'd appreciate me going all in-depth on this kind of thing."

 

"Ah." Hiro wrapped the dish towel they'd stuffed with ice cubes around his injured wrist. "Does Tadashi have stuff like that too?"

 

"Uhhh," Fred took a moment to look over from his quest for chips. "Yeah. All guys do, pretty much. Maybe not  _exactly_ like that, 'cause there could be different types of stuff, but yeah."

 

"Uh huh." Hiro stared up at the ceiling and waited for the cold to seep its way through the towel and numb the pain of his throbbing wrist. He'd been through Tadashi's things before, not with any direct intention of snooping, really, but he'd never found anything questionable. Even Aunt Cass had snatched a book out of his hands one Summer's eve when he'd had nothing better to do than comb through the pile of novels next to her bed. She's been very shrill about it, nervously flipping through the pages to see how far he'd gotten and saying she needed his help in the kitchen so he should go right now and she'd meet him there. That pile had disappeared when he checked later that evening, but at nine he'd chalked it up to adult craziness.

 

Hiro had put two and two together a long time ago, but it was difficult to see Tadashi in that light. Looks could be deceiving, but he'd never even considered the fact that his collegiate brother might have a sex life. He'd never really thought about it for anyone. It was just a thing that was there and that was it, no questions, no answers, no acknowledging. It existed, for sure, but it didn't hold any kind of object permanence.

 

But now it was here, out for the world to inquire and Hiro was genuinely curious.

 

He gave his wrist an experimental turn and started when it resulted in a crunch. Fred giggled in the background and dropped a couple more cheese curls into his mouth. 

 

"Want something to eat?"

 

"Actually, I think I'm gonna head home. See if Tadashi's back yet, help Aunt Cass with the Friday rush." Hiro made his way to the foyer, followed by the steady munch of cheese curls. He shouldered his backpack and prepared to set off when there was a crash of plastic on the tile.

 

"Wait!" Fred grabbed his bag from behind and pulled on the zipper, shoving the Deadpool comic inside before yanking it closed. "Don't forget to read it, okay? I swear it's great. You might even get a couple of ideas for reviving the dead." He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

 

Hiro huffed and swung the front door open, chilled by the draft of near twilight. "Still not possible, but I could give it some thought."

 

Fred gave him a quick hug from behind. "Thanks Hiro! Oh, and tell Tadashi to read it too!" He waved as Hiro stepped out onto the sidewalk, orange dusted fingers a blur of happiness.

 

"Of course," Hiro grinned as he closed the door, "I'm sure he'll love it."


	2. There It Ain't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Convenient ice cream before the rest of it.

Hiro kicked the box of spare parts under his brother's bed and fell back against the wall. He hadn't been snooping for very long but Tadashi was right downstairs helping Aunt Cass and could be back any minute. And, if he was being honest, he was running out of places to search. Nothing of remote suspicion under the bed, in his nightstand, behind the bookshelf or surfboard. There wasn't a single Economics note out of place or robotics design that was even vaguely cagey. Everything was just as he'd previously assumed: Tidy, with only the most minor splashes of disorganization (and even that was limited to the regular clutter of pencils and paper).

 

He ran a hand over his face as the muted tramp of feet on stairs started up from the first floor.

 

"Hiro!" Aunt Cass yelled. "Can you come help Tadashi? We got a HUUUUUGE group of kids that just skedaddled!"

 

Hiro stood and stretched his cramped limbs. Most of the twenty minute search had been done on his knees and the skin on the joint was imprinted with crisscrossed lines from the wood floor. "Be down in a second!" He took one last glance around the space, shoved the still-open bottom drawer of the nightstand closed, and skipped downstairs.

 

The café portion of their house was still buzzing with patrons even this late in the evening, with smaller clumps of business people in wrinkled suits laughing over coffe and one or two college-age kids tapping away on isolated laptops in the corner or near the windows. The smell of fried dough wafted strongly from a line of tables shoved against the west wall, bereft of customers but still spluttered with their used napkins, crumb-filled plates, and uncollected tips.

 

He headed over to the dishwasher behind the front counter where Tadashi was unloading a steaming pile of clean dishes, towels covering both hands for protection.

 

"Hey!" He smiled at Hiro before placing two more cups in the drainer. "Can you just go and get all the tips at the super table? And when you're doneeaugh!" Tadashi dropped the forks he'd been carrying in the silverware drawer and quickly ran to the sink. He hit the knob with his wrist and ran cold water over his right hand.

 

"You okay?" Hiro leaned over, trying to catch Tadashi's eye so he could smirk.

 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. I appreciate the heartfelt concern there." He dried his hands off and stuck a finger through a hole in the towel he'd been using. "Just need to watch where I put my hands. Now get a move on!"

 

The next few hours were all chores, first dropping off the numerous group tips in Aunt Cass' tip jar, then running plates and silverware back to Tadashi, then wiping tables and refilling cups until he finally found a moment to slump over in a vacant chair in the corner. Hiro dropped his head on the table and watched his Aunt hand Tadashi the keys to lock up.

 

She ruffled his hair in passing, promising they could both have ice cream sundaes for helping her out, no dinner required. His eyes flew open at the prospect and he stayed on her heels the entire way up the stairs. 

 

By the time Tadashi joined them, the kitchen table was littered with spoons and bowls and open containers of toppings. Hiro waved him over and nearly choked when Aunt Cass spooned coffee jelly and hot sauce onto her ice cream.

 

"That looks interesting, Aunt Cass," Tadashi flitted his gaze from her bowl to Hiro and took the bowl he was handed.

 

"I know, right? This is going to be GREAT! Or, at least, your aunt's very first science experiment." She dug her spoon in eagerly (one of the larger ones they normally used for mixing pasta) and shoveled a huge scoop into her mouth. Hiro took the thing of gummy worms Tadashi offered him and stuck four in his mouth while they waited. It took two seconds (about) for Aunt Cass to stop shifting the concoction around in her mouth and to scrape the toppings to one side so she could get at pure ice cream. Tadashi chuckled at the spectacle behind his hand and sprinkled extra chocolate chips into his bowl.

 

Total, it took three minutes before Aunt Cass finally quit, scraping what was left of her sundae into the garbage and bidding them a goodnight after sticking the leftover ice cream in the freezer. They listened to the water run in her bathroom, along with a very obvious gargle and spit of mouthwash. Hiro licked the last of the chocolate sauce off his spoon before dumping the dishes in the sink and heading upstairs.

 

By the time Tadashi bothered to wander up, Hiro had already changed into his pajamas and was sitting cross-legged on his bed, a screwdriver in one hand as he tinkered with Megabot's settings. He loved the old battlebot to pieces and, while he had no official use for it anymore, messing with it was a good distraction. Tadashi pulled the screen separating their "rooms" closed and began changing for bed. Hiro took a glance at the screen out of the corner of his eye and carefully set the robot down. _  
_

He'd put everything back, right? Closed drawers, reshuffled papers....... He was still tense over his brother maybe discovering an out of place bauble and questioning him. And what could he say? 'Oh yeah, sorry about that Tadashi. I was just looking for your stash of pornigraphic magazines'. That would go over  _brilliantly_. Especially followed by the inevitable shocked silence and an interrogation as to how he even knew what 'pornographic' meant.

 

Why was he so concerned anyway?

 

Tadashi stuck his head out from behind the partition, startling Hiro from his imagination. "Were you looking in my room earlier?" He raised an eyebrow at him.

 

Hiro's shoulders tensed up even further and he put all of his concentration on keeping his tone nonchalant. "Oh you know," He picked up Megabot again and searched his covers for the screwdriver. "Stuff."

 

"What stuff?" He pulled the screen aside completely and stood there in his t-shirt and boxers.

 

"Just stuff." This was it. This was truly the moment when his face would melt itself off his skull.

 

"Hiro, what stuff?"

 

"Some stuff."

 

"Hiro!" Tadashi marched across the room and leaned down so he was right in Hiro's face. He plucked the bot from his hands and set it down on the floor. "What. Stuff."

 

"Just......some magazines."

 

"Why would you be looking for magazines in my room?"

 

Hiro cringed. Maybe the truth wouldn't be so bad. Maybe his cheeks would return to their normal temperature one day. What's more, his eyes starting to ache from staying on the edges of his vision for so long in a fruitless quest to not look at Tadashi. 

 

"Hiro."

 

"I just....accidentally found some, uh," he lowered his voice,"pornomagazinesinFred'sroomandwaswonderingifyouhadany."

 

"Oh." Tadashi looked relieved, if suddenly more than a little awkward. He stood up again and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, you are fourteen."

 

Hiro almost interrupted with their normal 'Almost fifteen!' rebuttal but decided against it. Tadashi was reacting far less crazily than he had envisioned and now was not the time to be reminded he had a few more months before that next birthday. 

 

His brother sat down next to him, their knees almost touching because of the small space.

 

Hiro waited in the silence until it was comfortable again. "So," he eyed Tadashi,"What tipped you off?"

 

He pointed to the corner of his room where the bookshelf didn't quite meet the wall. "You forgot to put my surfboard back. And," he laughed as Hiro slapped his forehead in remembrance, "I don't have have anything you're looking for. Just FYI."

 

Hiro peered at him through his fingers. "Like, not at all?"

 

Tadashi shook his head. "Nope."

 

"But Fred said all guys had pictures of girls in sexy stuff. Or, I guess, no stuff. Even you and Wasabi."

 

"I don't know about Wasabi, but I don't have a bunch of pictures of naked girls. Not really my kind of thing."

 

"Naked guys?"

 

"Naked  _anything_ is not my kind of thing."

 

"Huh." Another gap in conversation as Hiro processed this. "But do you still--" He jerked a fist up and down before Tadashi turned pink and reached a hand over to stop him.

 

"Very,  _very_ rarely."

 

Another couple beats of silence. His brother's masturbatory habits wasn't quite the information he had set out to learn tonight, but it was information all the same. Also he was pretty sure half of the conversation had consisted of them not speaking. Which was a little ridiculous.

 

Hiro leaned over the side of the bed and picked up the comic Fred had lent him. "I'll just read what Fred gave me then--"

 

"And WHAT did Fred give you?"

 

"Nothing-aah!" Hiro screamed and twisted as Tadashi tackled him to the bed. They scuffled for a few minutes with suppressed shouts (for Aunt Cass' sake) of 'Give it here!' and 'Get off of me!'. Many elbows found their way many places (mostly into other elbows) and Hiro conveniently found the lost screwdriver when it stabbed him in the foot. The end result was Hiro sprawled sideways on the bed with Tadashi on his back on top of him.

 

This was better than half silences.

 

Hiro opened the comic above their heads and wrapped his legs around Tadashi's midsection to stave off any notion of escape. "Allow me to tell you the tale of Deadpool and his friendly neighborhood dinosaur," he drawled in an deep English voice.

 

Tadashi smiled and pulled the comic down to where he could see the pictures. "The pleasure's all mine, genius."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written fanfiction since I was obsessed with Harvest Moon four years ago.  
> This was fun. ^u^


End file.
